Here fishy fishy
In the past, I have always turned my nose up at fish. Except for the wiley stick fish, very rare in the wild. Yup, I’m an uncultured cretin when it comes to fish. Sometime in the last year or so, I’ve been trying to change that. I was always afraid to cook fish before, but not so much anymore. I am overcoming my fear and expanding my dinner possibilities. No longer does my fish come from Mrs. Paul (except for when I’m feeling really lazy and craving them), now I buy it either flash frozen or already defrosted for me from the seafood counter. I know that stuff was previously frozen, this state is way too far from the sea for it to be anything else.
Tonight’s adventure into the unknown was tilapia. Never had it, had no clue what to expect, but it looked enough flounder-like to be ok in my book. I know that I like mild white fillets. So, I broiled those fillets with a little olive oil and old bay seasoning. Served it with some *gasp* instant mashed potatoes and gingered spaghetti squash.
The spaghetti squash was another new one on me. I’d tasted it once before at a restaurant, but never cooked it. While I was out this afternoon, I assigned dad the task of finding me a recipe for it. He went straight to the food network website. The recipe left a lot to be desired as far as methodology, and we wound up not following it exactly after researching some other sites. The recipe told me to split the squash, put it in a pan with 2 T of butter, 1 T of honey and 1.5 T of grated ginger, salt and pepper to taste and bake it for an hour at 375. What I did not expect was how rock hard the durned thing would be. After a little research we opted to add some water to the pan and to cover it. The original sauce had cooked in a bit and very lightly flavored the squash. It needed salt, but once it got it tasted delicious. That recipe was definitely a keeper.
Also in the works currently are a batch of Alton’s overnight cinnamon rolls and a nutella cake. I’d been looking for any excuse to make the nutella cake from the first time that I saw its gorgeous self on some food blog or other. Tuesday night I am going to a birthday dinner for some friends and that sounds like the best excuse ever. Dad even volunteered to shell my hazelnuts while I was making dinner. Sometimes he’s right handy.